TAYLOR MILLARDPosted at 8:01 pm on February 3, 2019
Pope Francis is headed to the Arabian Peninsula – if he’s not there already – for a meeting with Muslim leaders and a Mass in United Arab Emirates. Francis announced his trip this morning on Twitter.
Pope Francis
✔
@Pontifex
I am about to leave for the United Arab Emirates. I am visiting that Country as a brother, in order to write a page of dialogue together, and to travel paths of peace together. Pray for me!
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4:30 AM - Feb 3, 2019
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The trip is being done at the behest of UAE leaders, apparently, with Yousef Al Otaiba, UAE’s ambassador to the U.S., writing at POLITICO it’s a way to encourage religious harmony in the region.
The pope’s visit will send a strong signal across the region and world: People with different beliefs can live, work and worship together. Reverence, respect and compassion are core common values. Prayer is both uniting and unifying…
The pope’s visit this week will highlight one approach close to the center of the Muslim world. Today, the UAE is home to 200 different nationalities, more than 40 churches and approximately 700 Christian ministries. Sikh and Buddhist temples welcome multinational congregations. Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke ground for a new Hindu temple. Evangelical Christian ministries abound in the country. The Jewish community is vibrant and growing.
Beyond ensuring an open environment for religious practice at home, the UAE also advocates for freedom of worship and interfaith exchange globally.
I am not Catholic – I’ve been to a couple Catholic funerals and visited the Vatican in 1998 on a high school trip – but I am encouraged by the meeting. It is a start in encouraging more tolerance between the major religions in the region which all come from a similar branch in the worship of God (Islam traces its roots back to Ishmael (Isaac’s brother), while Christianity is technically a Jewish cult because Jesus is the Messiah the Jews are waiting to deliver them). It would be nice if a non-Catholic leader or three were also part of the event – but it’s not surprising the Pope is the only Christian to be there. Protestantism is decentralized with no central Earthly leader, the Anglican community is split, and Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I is in Greece.
There is still a real opportunity with this meeting between the faiths but it depends on what happens afterward. It’s all nice to speak about “religious tolerance” but nothing is going to happen unless individual mosques and churches start promoting it on a regular basis.
Even Al Otaiba admits there is too much strife. Via POLITICO:
Across the Middle East, we face the menace of extremism. Radical interpretations of Islam represent a tiny minority of those who practice the faith. But often the shrillest voices shout the loudest – whether it is on TV, on the internet or in a mosque. They twist and obscure the fact that Islam is a religion of peace. As one article from Dabiq, the English-language magazine of the so-called Islamic State, declared to its secular readers, “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah – whether you realize it or not.”
These extreme voices seek to incite crazed followers to do their bidding. They give rise to zealots like who carry out hateful, violent deeds against religious and ethnic minorities. Christian Coptic churches are attacked in Egypt. The Yazidi homeland is destroyed in Iraq. The Jewish Museum is bombed in Brussels. And fatefully, it is Muslims – Sunni and Shia – that suffer the heaviest price of all from the murderous fundamentalists.
Ignoring the threat or being complacent is too dangerous and will only feed the cycle of sectarian violence that has gripped the region for more than a generation. Removing the extremists by force is also not the answer as long as the poisoned ideology and the conditions that nurture it endure.
I don’t know whether anything will come of this meeting but it’s nice to see the various faiths coming together. Whether it promotes more “peace and tolerance” is anyone’s guess – and I’m not holding my breath because we live in a fallen world – but the meeting is a nice first step.
Re: Pope Francis is headed to the Arabian Peninsula
Since Catholics are leaving their religion thanks to pedophile priests and nuns, the Caths have come to the ME to promote their fake religion, promising peaceful and loving Catholicism as a substitute for Islam.
Blind people who think grass is greener on other side will convert I guess.
Re: Pope Francis is headed to the Arabian Peninsula
Salaam
Another update
PICTURES: Pope celebrates first ever outdoor Mass in United Arab Emirates
The Pope called on Catholics of the Arabian Peninsula to witness to Christ through humility and love
Meeting with tens of thousands of Catholics living in the United Arab Emirates, Pope Francis urged them to be meek, peaceful and express their Christian identity by loving others.
The UAE Catholic community, which numbers close to 1 million, includes foreign workers from roughly 100 nations, but particularly India and the Philippines. They filled the stadium at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Sports City and the open spaces around the complex for Pope Francis’ Mass on February 5.
Paul Matthew, his 13-year-old daughter Meldy and 4-year-old daughter Michelle, were at the stadium early, the proud bearers of some of the 42,000 special tickets allowing access inside the stadium.
“We are very happy; it’s a historic moment,” said Matthew, who came from India five years ago and is involved with the “outreach ministry” of St Paul’s Church, visiting the sick in local hospitals.
The United Arab Emirates is officially Muslim, but allows members of other faiths to worship according to their beliefs. The Muslim dignitaries at the Mass were led by Sheik Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the government minister of tolerance.
In his homily, Pope Francis told the Catholics: “I like to quote St. Francis, when he gave his brothers instructions about approaching the Saracens and non-Christians. He wrote: ‘Let them not get into arguments or disagreements, but be subject to every human creature out of love for God, and let them profess that they are Christians.'”
So “neither arguments nor disagreements” are called for, the Pope said. In the 13th century “as many people were setting out, heavily armed” to fight in the Crusades, “St. Francis pointed out that Christians set out armed only with their humble faith and concrete love.”
“Meekness is important,” the Pope said. “If we live in the world according to the ways of God, we will become channels of his presence; otherwise, we will not bear fruit.”
Re: Pope Francis is headed to the Arabian Peninsula
I feel disgusted and very offended.First a hindu temple,now a mass, you bringing foreigners to muslim lands as maids and they take you over in the sake of "tolerance".Thats what happen when you fall in love with money and not your Creator.
How about you build a palm island for the muslim refugees? Oh wait,lets first hear smn who believes in 3 gods to teach us how to be tolerant!
Re: Pope Francis is headed to the Arabian Peninsula
Salaam
Globalists want to transform the Middle East away from Islam and to forcefly embrace modernity. Inter faith dialogue is one of its techniques. (Im not against it but it has downsides as Ive realised over the years)
Utter Humiliation: The Building of Churches and Temples in the Gulf
The Pope is giving some Catholic service in the UAE this week. He was invited by the UAE’s crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed. This is yet another public relations exercise from the UAE at the expense of Islam and the Umma. Recently, the UAE prince also agreed to build a large Hindu temple in honor of diplomatic relations with India’s extremist Hindu PM Modi, whose party is oppressing and regularly inciting violence against India’s Muslims.
This is, of course, humiliating that non-Muslims are able to build their religious temples and and proselytize in Muslim lands. We know, obviously, that the rulers of most of these Muslim Arab countries are nothing other than cheap Western agents, slavishly serving Western interests. They don’t even pretend anymore to care about the interests of Muslims let alone the directives of the Sharia. And the Sharia is very clear and unambiguous in regard to building religious temples and the proselytization of kufr in Dar al-Islam and specifically the Arabian peninsula. It’s strictly forbidden.
Isn’t it bad enough that Muslims in Dar al-Islam are being indoctrinated 24/7 by Western media, Western entertainment, Western education, etc., etc., being broadcast through internet and satellite into every home, bending and distorting the Muslim mind and transforming it beyond recognition? Isn’t that enough? Do we also have to build churches and temples and bring the Pope to give mass? The temples for worshiping liberal secular capitalism were built decades ago: the corporate centers and markets that line, for example, the Haram in Mecca. But now, these subsidiary falsehoods are putting their boot print on the face of Muslim lands.
But What About Reciprocity and Tolerance?!
First of all, ignorant people shouldn’t talk about issues they don’t know the first thing about.
They want to argue that, since Muslims are allowed to have mosques and Islamic institutions in the West, that means Muslims should allow churches and temples in Muslim countries. This is a simple matter of mutual respect and reciprocity, they claim.
Such words demonstrate the depth of their ignorance on these issues.
What is reciprocity? The definition is quite simple, according to the dictionary:
The practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit, especially privileges granted by one country or organization to another.
For example, if someone gives me a gift, I should reciprocate by giving that person a gift or exchanging something else of value that demonstrates good will.
So, doesn’t that mean if non-Muslims allow mosques to be built in their lands, we should allow churches and temples to be built in Muslim lands? Absolutely not! There is absolutely nothing reciprocal about this. This is the exact opposite of reciprocity!
By building mosques and calling to Islam, Muslims are spreading truth and calling to salvation, Heaven, the pleasure of Allah. This is what Muslims are offering: service to humanity. How is that the same as building structures of kufr, calling to destruction, Hell, the displeasure and anger of Allah? How are those things the same?
The only people who view mosques, churches, and temples as all being essentially the same thing are secularists and atheists. From the batil secular perspective, there really is no difference between any of these religions. So reciprocity entails that if mosques are built in the West, then churches should be built in the East. “You scratch my back, I will scratch yours.”
But tell me why Muslims would accept this secular assumption? Why would we grant this atheistic premise? This is like, “I scratch your back, you stab me in the back and send me to the Fire.” How is that fair? How is that reciprocal?
Truth is clear from falsehood. There is no equivalence there.
I can understand why the Pope would see an equivalence and accept the secular presumption. Because he is the figurehead of a false religion, bereft of Divine Guidance. As such, he easily will fall into whatever popular ideologies come along, even when those ideologies contravene his own religion. Prior to the domination of secularism post-Enlightenment, the Catholic Church never allowed non-Catholics to build religious centers in their lands. At the same time, the Church was heavily involved with proselytizing all over the globe. It saw no contradiction in this. But the new Pontiff feels no hesitation in breaking the conventions of his own Church. Oh well. They just went from one kind of batil to another kind of batil.
But alhamdulillah, as Muslims, we have the Sharia as preserved by the ulama. Unlike the Papacy, we have the anchor that prevents us from drifting away from obedience to our Maker.
I found it sad yet amusing that some are claiming the Pope’s visit is meant as a gesture of good will from the UAE’s monarchy to the Christian migrants in the Gulf from poor South East Asian countries. This is a farce. If the UAE ruling class cared about these poor migrants, they would do something about the terrible working and economic conditions they have to endure. They would do something about the despicable racism, elitism, prejudice (`asabiyyah, `unsuriyyah, etc.) plaguing the Gulf that treat migrants as sub-human. How about real representation of good will by treating these poor non-Muslims with true justice and kindness, which the Sharia requires? And while they’re at it, the UAE and Saudi can stop bombing Muslims and otherwise contributing to their oppression around the world.
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